My Usual Lie
by Sare Liz
Summary: Sequel to Peace On Earth: fire tempers the strength of a soul - Marie knows this now.


# My Usual Lie

_ I watched the western sky  
The sun is sinking  
The geese are flying south  
It sets me thinking  
_

Jean sat with her patient, as she did at this hour, every day, every day. It was just after the professor took her to do her physical therapy. It was just before the mansion broke for lunch. Jean sat with the soft latex gloves and stroked her cheek, talking quietly to her, checking her mind for any sign of conscious activity. 

It never occurred to her that because she never found any, there might be no purpose in speaking to her. Not in all the time Jean had sat there, in the corner of the medlab, had she thought that. All studies showed that talking to coma patients helped the readjustment when they woke, and she would wake. 

So Jean spoke, talking about her day, the students, the team, the tragedies and the successes. She spoke to her confessor about her fears for herself, the professor, the fate of the team. 

Just an hour every day, that was all she had to spare for the relative relaxation and conversation, but it was more time than anyone else got of the doctor's attention, unless they too were on a gurney. 

And then the hour was up, and Jean rose from the comfortable chair beside the bed in the corner of the medlab, stretching her back and sighing, never expecting an answering sigh from behind her. 

Her heart stopped, fell, then rose up into her throat as she slowly turned around, afraid - so afraid - that her mind was playing tricks with her, as it had that first year. She shook slightly, unable to swallow past the lump in her throat, unable to finish the turn that would tell her what kind of tears she'd be crying in just a few more heart beats. 

She staggered slightly to see her patient's - her heart's best friend's - head turned, eyes open and the barest of smiles on her face. Before Jean could do anything, say anything at all, the girl started stretching her limbs, one by one, finding them not stiff at all. Another sigh and a smile of pure happiness and contentment stretched across her face. 

"Heya, Jean. What's wrong with you? Ya don't look so good." 

Jean would have loved to answer, but she had no voice, and couldn't even muster the concentration for mental communication. 

Instead of waiting for the answer that clearly wasn't coming, she looked around the room. "Why on earth am Ah down here? Ah'm not sick, am Ah? Ah feel so good, Ah can't be sick." 

She waited this time, for the answer, even after Jean rushed to her, holding her tightly as she sat up. She laughed as Jean held on, and wondered at the tears when she let go. Still, she waited. 

"You… Oh, God," Jean breathed in what might be wonder, or relief, or sorrow. "You were in a coma." 

A huge grin creased all the way to her eyes. "A coma? You're shittin' me." Her laugh rung out clear and loud and it held no hint of pain, or trouble, or sorrow. It was a perfect sound, an innocent sound. It made Jean cry all the more. 

The professor had been right. She would wake, and wake perfectly at peace. For as long as it took, she would heal herself. It would take time, he'd said. When she woke, her mind would be as perfect as it could be, having searched out all the impurities, understanding all the facets of herself. 

She had woken at peace with the world. It was a shame, a horrible, dire, pathetic, pitiful shame that the world couldn't have made its peace with her in the same time. 

"Alright, Ah'll bite. Ah only remember fallin' asleep in the Professor's office, but how long Ah been out? A week? Two?" 

Jean's voice shook when she said it, but she did. She looked over at the monitor for the exact amount, as it burned there in green digits. "Nine years, ten months, four days, and eighteen hours." Jean was still shaking all over, finally having to sit back down as the woman's eyes widened and her jaw went slack. 

Jean watched as her friend regained composure, tilting her head and staring intently at her sitting, shaking form. Noticing, perhaps the few strands of gray hair, or the tiny lines at her eyes. Eventually, she nodded slowly, letting it all sink in, perhaps. 

She looked down at her own hands, turning them over, and then back again. She smiled slightly at the bright blue paint on her nicely manicured nails and had a look of mild wonder and amusement at the reminder that Jubilee had returned home for a visit. 

With a small snort of acceptance, her gaze returned to Jean's still wet eyes. "So," she started, softly, reassuringly. "You wanna tell me what Ah missed?" 

Jean took a shaking breath, still unable to stop the tears as she thought of what she would have to say, and how much of it would be painful. Instead, she drew on the strength and calm that her friend was unknowingly projecting, wrapping it around her like a blanket, and was finally able to stop the memories for a moment, able to keep reality away. She smiled an almost genuine smile and took a breath, letting it out and tension with it. 

"Why don't we get you cleaned up first? We can walk in the garden," Jean said, her voice beginning to shake, her brief reprieve used up, "And we'll talk then. It's a beautiful day outside, Rogue," Jean said, tears beginning to flow again, catching in her throat, making her pause, looking to the ceiling for some support, any support she could find. Exhaling, inhaling, then expunging the air from her lungs once more, she tried again, look back to the girl who wasn't a girl any more. "The snow makes everything look fresh and pure." 

She reached out and took Jean's gloved hand in her own, holding it tightly and smiling. "Ah'm sure it does, Jean. And for heaven's sake, call me Marie." 

* * *

_ I did not miss you much  
I did not suffer  
What did not kill me  
Just made me tougher  
_

Jean hovered over her like a mother hen, knowing there wasn't a soul in the halls, but fretting nonetheless. 

She was dressed now, for the weather, for her life. A long hooded coat, not her own, wrapped around her, the hood pulled down past her features, her hair pulled gently to the back. 

"Jean, Ah trust you, Ah do, but Ah still don't get why the get up. This is still my home, ain't it?" 

"Of course it is. It always will be. I just… I just wanted to have an hour. Just an hour. We'll go see the professor, then parade you around the mansion, but after an hour. I want to give you that at least, to catch up." 

Marie peeked out from under her dark hood, smiling like an imp before stepping out the door and towards the garden in front of the paused Jean. 

The weather was mild with no wind, no piercing entity to steal the warmth away from your bones as you shivered for warmth. It was the kind of weather you could stay out in for ages, if you were covered up, and only the tip of your nose would notice the chill. Perfect for a stroll. 

"Alright. Your turn." 

Jean took in as much air as her lungs cold hold and sighed it out again. "Oh, God. I don't know where to start, R- er, Marie." 

"Well, why don't ya start with me being in a coma, and work from there?" 

Jean huddled deeper into the coat she wore, her chill coming from the inside and not so easily dispelled as nature's. "The Professor - " Jean paused already, stuck on the mental image of her mentor, the man Rogue knew him as, and the man he'd become. "The Professor," she started again, "put you to sleep. You'd gone into shock over reading Logan's letter goodbye, and it was the best thing Xavier could have done. But…" 

"But," Marie prompted, seemly not bitter, only curious. 

"The words he used to put you into a deep sleep - you have to understand, Rogue. He'd done it before, exactly the same thing before, but with you… Shit. There isn't a nice way to say it." 

"Then just say it, sugah. Ah won't be offended, and it sure will move the story along. Only got an hour, ya know." 

"Okay. I say this with love. You mind was a hell of a lot more messed up than any body else's he'd put to sleep." 

"See? That weren't too hard," Marie interjected, getting a slight but truly genuine smile from Jean. The first. 

"And part of the going to sleep, is sleeping until you are well, mind, body, the whole shebang. Though I have to say, no one has ever woken up with the peace you have," Jean said, pausing to look at her companion. 

Marie cocked her head to the side, a tendril of white hair sliding out from beneath the hood. "So, I played Sleeping Beauty. My Prince never showed, so I had to serve my term?" 

Jean looked down sorrowfully, thinking of princes never returned, and kings decrepit and feeble. She nodded, and spoke so quietly as to not disturb even the air. "Something like that. The Professor would be the best to tell you about that." 

The doctor felt a strong arm circling her shoulders and was drawn in, more so by the peace projected than the arms that pulled, but the effect was the same. Her tears were silent, soaking into the wool of the coat even though she only gave herself a moment. 

Marie looked at her quietly, sorrow and questions tingeing the peaceful gaze, but she keep her silence, perhaps knowing that Jean could only tell things so quickly. 

"I'm so sorry." Jean swallowed harshly, still embraced by Marie, but at arms length. Raising her bloodshot, tearstained eyes, she met the gaze. "I'm so sorry that you woke up to this world. It's not how you left it." 

"They got that mutant registration crap through the senate?" 

Jean laughed briefly at Marie's sarcasm. She shook her head in tiny, slow movements. "No. They didn't get that one. But it's worse than that would have been. 

"Tell me about. Ah won't know if you don't tell me. And don't shield me, neither. Ah get the truth from you now and it's nice and easy, or Ah find it out later the hard way, and Ah guarantee Ah'll like it from you better." 

Jean nodded her assent and proceeded to tell Marie what had happened. About her friends, and where they were now. About the secret government programs. About Ororo finding love. About the Sentinels attacking both X-Men and Brotherhood alike, and then attacking humans. About the Battle of New York City, how bravely fought it was, how they almost didn't win, even with the help of Magneto. How Scott fell, taking down the very last Sentinel with him, saving so many. 

That was the turning point, she explained. The turning point for so many things. Mutants finally had respect as human beings did, though bigotry was still rampant. People saw the sacrifice of the leader of the X-Men, it couldn't be refuted. Outside, the world seemed to be improving. Sentinels were still very much a threat, but at least they weren't an indiscriminate threat. 

Inside, the world had fallen apart. Marie's continued coma had sapped Xavier, making him doubt himself in every way. Scott's death, the death of the man who could have been his own son, proved to be his undoing. His mind was still strong, even as his body decayed around him, but he wouldn't use it, refusing to use his powers almost entirely. He continued to control Marie's body daily, give her physical therapy in lieu of the mental therapy he could not provide. He continued to help Jean hone her skills, and beyond that, he refused. 

Jean took over the school. Ororo took over the team. Life went on. 

Jubilee managed to get a law degree, and Kitty was still into computers. Bobby felt a calling in accounting of all things, though he was still a member of the X-Men. Logan, Jean refused to discuss, telling her that the Professor could explain it better. 

And then the hour was over. Marie was saddened but seemed unbroken. 

_Professor, she is awake._

_I know, Jean._

_I told her everything I could think of, except Logan._

A wave of approval and understanding was sent to Jean, then it was Marie's mind that Xavier was conversing with. _Welcome back to us, Rogue._

Jean watched as Marie smiled slightly, perhaps in response to how Xavier could make you feel when he chose to. After a moment, the far off look was gone. 

"Ah'm to bring him his dinner. He said Ah could see him then." 

Jean took up Marie's arm, linking it with hers and strode out of the garden, to face Jean's present and Marie's future. 

* * *

_ I feel the winter come  
His icy sinews  
Now in the firelight  
The case continues  
_

Marie looked up at the statue that towered, bronze and easily twenty feet high, over a base of at least six feet of concrete. A soft sigh escaped her lips as she circled, noting first the engravings around the base of the monument, then the people fighting in bronze at his feet, smaller scaled beings, only life-sized. 

**_His example inspires us. Let us never forget his sacrifice. He had home, hearth, love and life, which he gave up willingly for the people of New York City, people who then hated and feared him for what we thought he was. _**

Let us not forget that day, let us not forget what the X-men did for us then. They freed us from the chains placed around our minds that made us think 'mutants' were not human. They are human. They are our sons and daughters, come in all shapes and sizes, they are good, bad, and all shades of grey in between. 

Scott Summers, 1978-2017. 

With our eternal thanks, may you rest in peace. 

Marie traced a gloved finger over the names of the X-Men who battled, so many names. So many people she was only vaguely familiar with. 

Finished for the moment examining the base, Marie shifted her attention up, looking at the life-sized figures of the X-Men, matching what names she knew to what faces. But there were more, so many more than were listed. Stepping back and squinting slightly, she tried to understand why that was. But then, when she circled to the side, she saw someone who had to be Erik. Near him was Mystique in her own shape, and others she didn't know. They were fighting the unseen foe that seemed to circle the monument. Coming around to the other side, Marie's breath caught in her throat. 

The Professor said he hadn't been there. But there he was, claws extended, hunched over and ready to attack. A pang, the likes of which she hadn't felt in quite a while, hit her, making her face cringe in pain. But she held it back, calming herself. She was successful until she saw the figure slightly behind him, covering his back but looking out into the fray as well. She seemed a formidable opponent, the only one without gloves, her hair sectioned in two locks that seemed to hang differently around her face, separate from the rest. 

Marie's hand flew to her mouth, covering it in shock, the tears streaming down her face. She hadn't been there either. The sentiment was lost on her, instead the momentary thought of Logan's redemption fled, and with it a hope she hadn't known she was carrying. She stumbled back to a bench that was somewhere behind, catching herself from falling too many times. Finally reaching the relative sanctuary of the wooden seat, Marie looked up, staring with hitching breath at Scott's clenched jaw, hand raised to his visor. 

The impossibility of it all overwhelmed her as she sat, sobbing on the bench, for the man she'd loved as if he'd been her own brother. It was last week that she helped him with his motorcycle. The week before that the he'd asked about the bruises, after which she had been more careful. She'd watched hockey with the two of them, and she fell asleep before the game had ended. She never found out who had won. 

Thinking about his classes, and training with him, laughing with him and getting yelled at, the loss hit her hardest of them all, as if all the changes in her world were embodied in the set of his jaw, the laser that was set to erupt from his eyes. 

She sat crying for everything she'd lost, heedless of people who may or may not have passed by until one older woman was moved enough to sit next to her, quietly for a moment. 

"I come here sometimes too, when it's all too much to bear. I think about them. Those X-Men. I think about how hard it must be to be one of them. My kids, they have the action figures. They wanna be mutants when they grow up, just like the X-Men. My heart shudders each time I hear that. It's not that I don't like mutants, but it's like your ten year old telling you how he wants to join some elite crack military force where signing up is signing the death certificate, to be dated later. I wouldn't wish that on anyone, even the ones like him who were strong enough to bear it, somehow." 

"That's very sweet," Marie whispered, trying to quell her tears in the face of an opinion she wasn't at all used to hearing. Looking over at the woman, she gave her a soft smile. 

"You look very familiar. Do I know you?" 

Laughing slightly at the absurdity of the situation, Marie replied in the politely negative, heedless of the two tear rolling slowly down her face. 

"Oh, sweetie," the woman consoled, innocently reaching out a bare finger to wipe the tear away. 

Marie jerked back with a small gasp. "Don't touch me," she whispered softly, but urgently. 

The woman's hand paused mid-gesture, and her mouth worked up and down, until she gave up on speech momentarily, and settled on staring at the monument. Then her hair. Then her gloved hands. Then the monument. Then back to her eyes. 

With a sigh, her hand dropped back into her lap. "I'm sorry," she whispered, blinking back the tears that were threatening her as well. "I… I had no idea. Oh, God. You're one of them, oh, God, and I've been so callous, just babbling on. I'm so sorry." 

Marie smiled again, her sorrowful gesture still a comfort to the woman. "No, you were very kind. He would have appreciated it." 

"Well, thank you. Thank you so very much, for everything." 

"I'll pass that along to those who were there," Marie said, rising, knowing she wanted to stay longer but unable to do it. Another time. 

"Oh, please do. Please do." 

Marie walked over, heedful of the woman's eyes on her still, to where Jean was sitting calmly on a different bench, staring up into her husband's likeness. 

"He would never have liked it, you know. I designed it, but he still wouldn't have liked it. He would have thought it was too uptight." 

Marie stood silently, waiting. 

"Feel better?" Jean asked, looking at the tears. 

Marie thought about that for a moment. "No." 

"Me neither." Her smile was a tight one, designed to build spirits, but backed by a broken one. "Maybe next time." 

* * *

_ Another night in court  
The same old trial  
The same old questions asked  
The same denial  
_

"Jean, can Ah ask you a question?" 

"Of course, Marie." 

"Is Cerebro used anymore?" 

Jean paused the letters she was responding to in Xavier's old office and looked over to her temporary assistant. "You mean, do I use Cerebro?" 

Marie shrugged slightly, unconcerned of the rhetoric, as they both knew why she wanted the contraption used. 

"I've… tried it, a few times. Each time the pain is worse." Jean looked up into the still peaceful eyes of her friend. She'd only cried that one time, in the park. Jean herself had been crying at the drop of a hat lately, and she was supposed to be the one in the supporting role. Not Marie, though. A Buddhist priest had nothing Marie's sense of calm and even Ororo was more temperamental. 

And now this request, coolly juxtapositioned next to it all. 

Marie hadn't said anything about that first conversation with the Professor, though it had to have upset her to some degree. In fact, there were a whole rack of things Jean was curious about, but somehow just didn't know how to breach. Like, what exactly **was** going on in her head? And where were the personalities? Were they completely gone? Could she manage them now? Is that why she spent hours each morning and evening with Xavier? 

Perhaps when Marie was ready, she would share that bit of information. In the meantime, she had apparently decided to actively seek out Logan. It was an incredible relief to see the desire, as she hadn't yet been truly able to fit in in any particular capacity, much like Logan himself, in the beginning. 

This was nothing but good news, hampered only by Jean's unwillingness to tie her mind in with Cerebro again. 

"But I'll try again if you want me to." And the strange was that Jean meant it. The doctor had vowed to never, ever set foot in the room again after the last time, when she'd found who she'd been looking for only to have him slam his mind shut. The ricochet had nearly killed her, and there hadn't been any strong figure to find her and carry her to their room afterwards. 

The sadness that Jean had looked to find in her eyes so often in the past two weeks, the sadness that she'd only been privy to that one time in the city, shown through keenly now, and the yearning in the woman across the room was palpable, though she normally had better control of her emotional projection. 

"Ah miss him, ya know? Ah try not to think about it, not access his memories, and so far it hasn't been a problem. But Ah do miss him somthin' fierce, even though he doesn't seem to give a rat's ass about me." 

Jean's eyes softened as she finally recognized something of the Rogue she knew before. "I'll use Cerebro in the morning." 

"No." At Jeans disbelieving look, Marie repeated herself. "Ah mean it, no. There's too much to do round here without you goin' off and riskin' yourself. Specially not so Ah can just go off and yell at an ornery old man who could probably care less anyhow. That's not somthin' Ah want on my conscience." 

"Alright, I won't." 

"Ya promise?" 

Well, she actually had the half formed idea to do it anyway, but now she was stuck. "Yes, I promise." Not tomorrow morning, anyway. 

"Good. Ah'm off to see the Professor then, goodnight." 

"Goodnight, Rogue," Jean replied. 

  


* * *

Title: My Usual Lie   
Author: Sare Liz Gordy [TeknoVamp@yahoo.com][1]   
Series: Follows 'Peace On Earth', the angst ending to the Pretty Series.  
Distribution: list archives, teknovamp.com, all others ask.  
Disclaimer: Marvel. Sting. Logan (my muse who is wholly and completely responsible for this story)  
Summary: Tempered in fire, a soul is strong. Logan knows this. So, now, does Marie.

Author's Notes: Can you believe that this fic actually cheered me up? Granted, I cried as I wrote certain parts of it, but there you are. I'm a fragile butterfly. This ain't news to nobody.

Warning: Character death, sorta, and allusion to other, previously dead character. 

* * *

all works archived are sole property of author - used with permisson  
please do not rearchive without contacting authors involved  
Copyright 2001 

   [1]: mailto:TeknoVamp@yahoo.com



End file.
